JEFFERSON CITY – Ste. Genevieve’s representative in the Missouri House, Republican Bryant Wolkfin, is one of three plaintiffs who have filed Moon v. State, a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of Senate Bill 3, a bill passed in the June Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly.
Senate Bill 3 gives around $1.2 billion in subsidies to the Chiefs and Royals.
The plaintiffs also include State Senator Michael Moon, Senate Dist 29, (Southwest Missouri) (GOP) and citizen activist Ron Calzone, Maries County (Central Missouri).
The Defendants are the State of Missouri, Governor Michael Kehoe and Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Counsel for the Plaintiffs are W. Bevis Schock and Erich Vieth, both of St. Louis.
This suit is supported financially by the Article 3 Institute, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
The Bill’s provisions (1) provide taxpayer subsidies to the owners of sports teams for building and improving stadiums, (2) allow holders of elective office to use campaign funds to pay attorneys to defend legal challenges brought against them related to the stadium subsidies, (which would otherwise be a forbidden use of campaign funds for a personal purpose), and (3) allow certain but not all counties to conduct votes on the adoption of the tax credits for property tax relief for disaster victims.
The suit asks the court to declare SB 3 unconstitutional and to enjoin its enforcement. The bill is procedurally unconstitutional because it violates the Missouri constitution’s rules requiring bills to have a clear title, a single subject, and a single purpose all the way through the legislative process. The bill is substantively unconstitutional because it grants taxpayer money to private for-profit entities where the purpose of such grants are not “primarily public.” The Bill also violates the Missouri Constitution in that it is a “special law.”
In this case, the stadium subsidies are nothing but a bribe paid to sports team owners so they don’t leave Missouri for Kansas. Essentially, the legislature and the governor are trying to force taxpayers to pay the salary of Patrick Mahomes.
Entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry should pay for their own stadiums.
The loser in the trial court will have a direct appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court.
See the comlaint here: